There's no way an airline "cabin crew" member can be expected to know whether your PDA has a phone built into it, or whether your laptop computer has WiFi permanently on. Nor can they tell whether the wireless circuit is switched off. So, are we about to see a blanket ban on smartphones, and on notebook computers, in the air? And if so, what can we do about it?

Last week Linus Torvalds said share denial technology, or DRM (Digital Rights Management) is OK. He did so on a linux kernel mailing list and so anticipating the reaction, with the Subject line: Flame Linus to a crisp!, he wrote:

You may have thought they mean roughly the same, but IBM's announcement of its new G-series ThinkPad amplifies where the differences may lay, and what this may mean as the unwired worlds of mobile and wireless network technologies converge.

Apple expanded its retail presence yesterday, right into the guts of your computer, in a move variously hailed as "revolutionary" (Wininformant), "unique" (The New York Times) and "we're impressed" (Forbes).